


Diamond in a Coal Mine

by Edonohana



Category: Werewolf Marines - Lia Silver
Genre: Action/Adventure, Banter, Begging, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Frottage, Hand Jobs, Kneeling, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-08
Updated: 2014-12-08
Packaged: 2018-02-28 15:44:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2738000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Edonohana/pseuds/Edonohana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was a beautiful night in Las Vegas. The full moon and flashing neon shone bright, and DJ was in love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Diamond in a Coal Mine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [somebraveapollo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/somebraveapollo/gifts).



> Thanks to egelantier for an excellent beta, and thanks to Ione for providing the premise.

It was a beautiful night in Las Vegas. The full moon and flashing neon shone bright, and DJ was in love.

 _I’m in love._ No matter how often the thought ran through his mind, it always brought DJ the same astonished joy as the first time. _Echo loves me._

“It’s like a miracle,” he said aloud. 

Echo turned, a lock of her moon-white hair swinging at her cheek. He wished he could touch it, but Las Vegas was way too close to Wildfire Base to make any public displays of affection. Spies aside, most of the regular employees lived there. “What is?”

DJ lowered his voice. “Us.” 

Echo too spoke softly. “A miracle would be if Mr. Dowling’s head spontaneously exploded.”

DJ laughed. “That’d be good too.”

She hadn’t had enough happiness in her life to trust it, he supposed. And he had to admit that their circumstances were unpromising. But Echo loved him, and he loved her, and they had all that night and the next day and the next night free. 

His mind knew that it wasn’t perfect, but it felt perfect in his heart. Even minus exploding heads. 

The night before, he and Echo had made love for the very first time. An hour before that, he’d cried in her arms. The night before that, he’d been out of his mind with combat stress. A few hours before that, he’d ripped out Match’s throat with his teeth. 

The last few days had been like the world’s most intense roller-coaster ride. It had been terrifying and transcendent, awful and amazing. And it was still rocketing forward and around and upside down, with no end in sight. DJ felt weightless, at once joyous and disoriented. 

He reached out, seeking to steady himself in movement and the world around him. DJ trailed his hand over the side of the buildings as they walked, feeling slick tile and the rough dip of grouting and sandpapery concrete, watching the smooth stride of Echo’s long legs in her rust-red jeans and the easy swing of her arms, feeling the smack of his feet against the sidewalk, listening to the roar of traffic and chatter of voices and click-whir-beep of machines, inhaling the clean scent of Echo beside him, feeling the cool night air and the warmth of her body. 

“It’s like being a wolf. Combat, and being in love. Pure focus, no second-guessing. I never—” He sensed a sudden tension in Echo, though she neither stopped nor stumbled. “Is something wrong?”

“Keep moving.” Echo spoke quietly. “Don’t let on.”

“What is it?” DJ kept walking, but scanned the area as much as he could without making it obvious. No one looked suspicious. He resisted the urge to whip around. Echo would protect his back.

“We’re being followed. Don’t turn around, but it’s two men behind us. I think they’re assassins.”

The cool focus of combat readiness flowed into DJ. “Shall we turn the tables? Ambush them?”

Echo nodded. “Somewhere private. Don’t kill them right off. We’ll need to question them.”

DJ looked around, then raised his voice as he pointed to a dark alley. “No, our hotel is that way. See, we can take a shortcut.”

“Your shortcuts always turn into long cuts,” Echo snapped. With a loud, exasperated huff, she followed him. 

The alley was crowded with dumpsters, trashcans, and abandoned sofas, and smelled like piss and garbage. 

“Never say I don’t take you anywhere special,” DJ whispered. 

“You always pick the most romantic getaways,” Echo whispered back. “Let’s pretend I’m behind the dumpster. You stand there talking to me. They close in on you, and I jump them from behind.”

“Okay. Uh, why would you be behind a dumpster?”

“I drank too much.” With that, Echo leaped straight upward. With impossible agility, she grabbed a windowsill, swung herself up to stand on an inch-long ledge, and jumped from there to the roof. In the blink of an eye, she had flattened herself down, invisible behind its low wall.

DJ turned to the dumpster and called out, “Are you okay? Do you want me to hold your hair back or something? Or rub your shoulders? I know you said you hate people watching you throw up, but it might be worth it if it made you feel better. Personally, I’d rather be embarrassed with someone I trust than maintain my dignity alone.”

As he spoke, he heard two sets of footsteps tip-toeing up behind him. It was almost impossible to keep from stiffening. He felt like he was standing in the crosshairs of a sniper rifle. For all he knew, he was. 

_Echo can jump faster than they can fire,_ he reminded himself. 

“I’m sorry I suggested that last round of jello shots,” he went on. “I had no idea—”

Air whistled behind him. DJ heard a thump and a pair of yells as he spun around. He slammed one attacker into the wall, and Echo slammed the other one into the opposite wall. 

With his back to Echo and the guy she’d captured, DJ used one hand to pin the wrists of the man he’d caught. The man— but he was barely that. Nineteen, maybe. Shouldn’t an assassin be older? 

DJ patted him down. He confiscated a switchblade and tossed it into the dumpster, but found no other weapons. His captive was frozen, eyes wide with fear. Shouldn’t an assassin fight back? 

“What did you want?” DJ asked. 

“Nothing!” 

DJ pulled him forward a few inches, then banged him into the wall again. “What were you going to do with us?”

His prisoner babbled in a panic, “We weren’t going to hurt you! We were going to take your wallets, but that’s all! The knife was just to scare you! I’ve never hurt anyone, I swear!”

DJ’s combat readiness was fading, along with his perception of danger. “How old are you?”

“Eighteen,” the guy muttered, shamefaced. 

“Old enough to be tried as an adult,” DJ pointed out. And also old enough to be a Marine. But DJ was having a hard time seeing him as a grown man, let alone an assassin. “Thought we were easy marks, huh? A woman and a little guy, no way they’re going to put up a fight?”

The boy’s embarrassed squirm was its own answer. Then his eyes bulged in terror as he stared over DJ’s shoulder. “How’s she doing that?”

DJ kept the boy’s hands pinned as he shifted his stance to see what Echo was doing. He’d heard Echo’s threatening tones and the assassin’s frightened replies as he’d been asking his own questions, but he hadn’t been paying attention to the words. Echo had tied his wrists behind his back with his belt, and was holding him six inches off the ground with one hand twisted in his shirt front. 

“Who sent you?” Echo demanded.

“No one, I swear!” Her prisoner’s voice rose shrilly; he was no older than the boy DJ was holding. “Just let us go, please!”

DJ couldn’t see Echo’s face, but her slow head-tilt was pure predator. She moved her free hand to his throat, forcing his neck back. “Who sent you?”

“No one!”

“Are they really worth your life?” Echo pushed his neck back even further, into a painful-looking angle. It would only take a little more force to snap his spine.

DJ released the boy and bolted to Echo’s side. “No one sent him. Let him go.”

Echo turned to DJ, still keeping a firm grip on her prisoner. His face was turning purple; she was choking him, maybe without even realizing it. “What are you talking about? He’s an assassin— like—”

“He’s not like you!” DJ grabbed Echo’s wrist. Her tendons were like steel wires. “He was trying to mug us but that’s all, let him go, you’re killing him—” 

The boy DJ had released lunged forward, grabbed Echo’s arm, and tried to pull her off his buddy. Echo casually backhanded him, knocking him down, but her grip slackened. Her prisoner kicked out at her. Echo pinned him against the wall. He struggled wildly, banging his head against the wall. Blood sheeted down his face from a cut in his scalp. 

DJ threw himself between them, trying to thrust them apart. “He’s a kid, Echo! Look at him!”

Echo dropped the kid. He fell against DJ. Blood spattered DJ’s face and open mouth, coppery and warm. DJ sprang back. The two muggers fled down the alley, and were gone. 

DJ spat on the ground, but he could still taste blood. He’d had to put dirt in his mouth to get rid of the taste of Match’s blood, but there wasn’t any dirt here. DJ spat again. No good. He rubbed his hand over his face, and drew it away smeared with blood. 

The icy killing stare faded from Echo’s eyes, replaced by confusion. “DJ? That’s not your blood, right?”

“No.” DJ took off his black leather jacket, pulled off his shirt and wiped his hands and face with it, then scrubbed his mouth. He considered putting the shirt back on, then tossed it in the dumpster and zipped his jacket over his bare chest. “I know there’s not all that much blood. It’s not like I got drenched in it or anything. But I don’t want— I really don’t want— It’s still wet. I’d feel it. I can’t believe you didn’t get any on you. You’re like that guy in the movie who walks untouched through the middle of a giant pie fight.”

Echo was giving him an odd look. “DJ—”

“You probably think I’m used to getting blood all over me, but I’m not. I mean, not human blood. The whole point of a gun is to drop your enemy while he’s still far away from you.” DJ spat again, remembering the spray of hot copper in his mouth. Flesh tearing under his teeth. “You don’t have a conversation with someone, and then kill him. That was a first. I talked to Match— not aloud, of course, in the pack sense— and then I killed him. Like you were about to. He really wasn’t dangerous, you know. He was just a stupid kid.”

“Yeah.” Echo’s usual cool had returned. “It’s a good thing you pulled me off him. Once it occurred to me that they were assassins, I couldn’t see anything else. That pair of clowns might owe you their lives.”

“They owe you too. I think you might’ve scared them straight.” DJ knew that spitting wasn’t working, but he couldn’t stop himself from trying again. 

Echo put her arm around his shoulders. “Are you all right?”

DJ focused on her touch, hoping that would get him to a yes. It didn’t, but at least it got him away from a no. “I’m not sure. I’m a little dizzy. And there’s blood in my mouth. It’s not mine.”

“I know. Come on. Let’s get out of this alley.” 

DJ let her lead him out. The metallic taste filled his mouth, and he couldn’t quite feel his feet hitting the ground. He wondered if everything was about to start speeding up until he felt like he’d be flung off the world, or if it was just residual stress from having killed Match— from _how_ he’d killed Match— and would ease off soon. 

“Fifty-fifty chance,” he said aloud. “Toss a coin. Heads I’m melting down again, tails I’ll be all right once I rinse out my mouth.”

“Let’s go with tails.” Echo dragged him into a dimly lit building. She sat him down at the bar, pulled up a stool beside him, and said, “Two shots of Maker’s Mark.”

DJ swished the whiskey around his mouth before he swallowed it. The smooth bourbon burned a trail down his throat and settled in his stomach like a pool of sunlight. The aftertaste was pure alcohol, buttery-rich and hot, without a trace of metal. With the taste of blood gone and Echo beside him, his head cleared and the world steadied. 

“Tails,” he said. 

“Oh, good.” Echo sounded as relieved as he felt. She took a last sip of her whiskey, then handed the remaining half-shot to DJ. 

“Don’t you want it?” he asked.

“I thought we might go for a drive.” She ran her fingers through her rumpled hair, glanced around the room, then dropped her hand down to rest it on his thigh, hidden by their bodies and the bar. 

DJ laid his hand over hers. “Where?”

“The desert. Not Death Valley. What I did just then— that’s not like me. I don’t make mistakes like that. I think I’m too keyed up. Too much happening in too short a time. Even though a lot of it’s been good…” 

“It _has_ been good. But I feel the same way. I’d like to get out of the city too.” DJ curled his fingers around Echo’s as he sipped his whiskey. So many firsts. First time falling in love. First kill up-close. First mercy-kill. First kill as a wolf. 

First time secretly holding hands. First time hiding a relationship.

No one had ever objected to him dating anyone. If he was in a situation where displays of affection would have been disrespectful, like in church, he’d simply waited till they were somewhere more appropriate. 

The need for secrecy made an act as ordinary as holding hands feel like an illicit thrill. He wasn’t going to thank their fucking evil handlers for it— he’d rather be able to touch Echo any time he liked— but it was surprisingly hot. He ached with the desire to do more. They sat facing a solid wooden bar with no one on either side of them, and their bodies were invisible to the bartender from the chest down…

Echo let go of his hand, then slid hers down to his inner thigh. She began slowly rubbing and caressing her way upward. Liquid heat flowed through him, burning in his veins like whiskey. He felt himself rise to meet her hand. She squeezed him a few times, then began slowly stroking up and down.

DJ took a deep breath, trying to keep his face from showing a "I'm getting a hand job under the bar" expression.

“Great minds think alike.” He had a feeling that he'd just demonstrated the "I'm getting a hand job under the bar" voice. He cleared his throat. “It had just occurred to me that we’re facing the bar.”

Echo gave him a blank stare. Her fingertips moved in taunting little circles. “Sometimes I really have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He was so tight against his jeans that it nearly hurt. If Echo went on like that, he’d start begging, or come in his pants, or drag her into the bathroom— actually, that wasn’t a bad idea. 

As he opened his mouth to suggest it, Echo stood up. “Let’s go.”

He slugged the last of his whiskey and followed her, only realizing once he was out the door that she hadn’t actually read his mind and they were outside, not in the bathroom. Of course. The desert.

“You’re one hell of a tease,” he remarked. “I can hardly walk.”

“Think of it as a sneak preview,” she advised. 

They walked to their car, and Echo took the wheel. As she drove and his music played, he let his hands stray just enough to tease her back without distracting her so much that she couldn’t drive safely. She pretended to ignore it, but pink crept into her cheeks and she squirmed a little. 

She drove along winding, empty streets, then took a dirt road that ended at a sandy plain. The full moon lit the boulder-strewn landscape, giving it a stark beauty. They got out of the car and started walking into the desert.

“This is a great place for wolves,” DJ said. “No one around. You can run and run. And I bet there’s rabbits.”

Echo nodded. “I thought you might like to be a wolf here. I know you haven’t had that many chances lately.”

DJ wished she could shift too, and run and hunt beside him. Then he recalled the predatory gleam in her eyes as she’d interrogated that poor sucker of a criminal. Echo was already a huntress.

She took a delicate step away. “Catch me if you can.”

Then she was tearing across the desert, sand flying out from under her heels, pale hair luminous under the moon. DJ shifted and pursued her. In the moonlight she looked no different to a wolf than she would to a man, a vision in black and white and shades of gray. She ran with the grace of a deer and the tirelessness of a wolf, and the scent that floated in her wake was fresh and green. It spoke of spring, of new things growing, and of hope.

He’d thought to hold himself back, but Echo was more than human and could run like a cheetah. He put on a burst of speed, his blood singing with the thrill of the chase. He was running as his ancestors had run since the dawn of time, chasing prey or playing or for the sheer joy of it.

“Speed it up!” Echo shouted. “If you can’t catch me, you can’t have me!”

 _The Mate-Hunt,_ he thought, and wondered if Echo knew about it. It was an ancient wolf ritual, part of the traditional marriage rite. Which wolf pursued and which fled varied by culture: sometimes it was determined by age, sometimes by gender, sometimes by mutual choice, sometimes by the choice of the pack. But always, one wolf led and one wolf followed, and at the end the wolves had proven their fleetness and strength and skill at the hunt, and claimed each other as mates. 

He couldn’t speak, but he howled his intent. Echo answered with a breathless laugh, and a distant coyote yipped a startled response. _Little cousins,_ wolves called them. He hoped he hadn’t scared it. 

Echo dodged around boulders and jumped over smaller rocks, always keeping ahead. But he was narrowing the gap. Wind whipped through his fur, and air burned in his lungs. He remembered running through the bleak white corridors of the lab, following her scent of green. He’d thought it would lead him to freedom. 

In a way, it had. 

Echo vaulted over a boulder. He started to veer to the left, to catch her on the other side. Then his man’s knowledge of her and his wolf’s instincts melded, and he knew exactly what she would do next. He became a man, paws shifting into feet without a stumble, and ran straight toward the boulder. 

She flew back over it, landing on her feet like a gymnast. DJ skidded to a stop, arms outstretched. Before she could dodge, he grabbed her shoulders and pinned her against the stone.

“Caught you,” he said. 

She was breathing hard, her breasts moving under the black cloth of her tight tank top. Her hair was damp with sweat, her bare shoulders slippery beneath his hands. In the moonlight, her eyes looked gray as a sky before a storm. 

“There’s no one around for miles,” Echo said. “I looked in the infrared. Just coyotes and kangaroo rats. And us.” 

DJ felt dizzy with possibilities. Two days ago, he’d thought he and Echo would never be more than friends, trapped together in an underground maze. Now they stood under the open sky, with every nerve tingling from the excitement and anticipation of a chase across the desert. Any moment now, they would start making love.

Without thought or planning, DJ slid down to kneel at her feet. Echo stroked his hair, and he rested his head against her body. He could feel her breathing. For a time he basked in the simple pleasure of touch and intimacy and love, and in the stillness within himself that took away his usual need to talk and move. 

But slowly, his contentment ebbed and his desire grew. Echo began stroking his face, his throat, his collarbones, his shoulders beneath his jacket. The moonlight stripped the color from her face, but the heat in her gaze was like ash over coals. 

DJ unzipped his leather jacket and laid it on a flat rock beside the boulder. The cool air made Echo’s hands seem even hotter against his bare skin. He shivered, but not from cold. 

“Can you take your top off?” DJ asked.

Echo pulled it off without ceremony, then tossed it and her bra atop his jacket. He still could hardly believe that all he had to do was ask, and she’d strip for him. DJ watched her nipples stiffen in the light breeze, and reached up to caress them. They hardened even more under his fingers. He cupped her entire breast in one hand, feeling its silky skin, its weight, its cushiony softness. 

Even without Echo touching him, he was as rock-hard as he’d been at the bar. Recalling how she’d teased him, he put his other hand between her legs and started rubbing her through her jeans. Her hands clenched on his shoulders, and she bit down on her lower lip. 

“No one within miles,” DJ reminded her, running his finger up and down, up and down. “You don’t have to keep quiet. There’s no one to hear but the coyotes.”

Echo’s thigh muscles tensed as she squirmed and shifted her weight, pushing against his hand. “What was it like for you in the bar? Pretending nothing was going on?”

“Hard,” he replied, then laughed. “In more ways than one. Hot. I’d never done that before. Had you?”

Echo shook her head, her breath coming faster. “Never. Sex was just a need. Not a game. I tease people I _like.”_

“Me too.” DJ eased off on the pressure, giving Echo the most delicate of caresses, watching with amusement as her jaw clenched with frustration. 

She gave a low growl, like some great cat. Then she caught him by the shoulders and yanked him to his feet. He let her swing him around until his back was up against the boulder and her whole body was pressed into his. Echo kissed him fiercely, then began rubbing up against him. 

DJ forgot about games and teasing. Echo’s mouth was hot on his as she moved with the same urgency that burned in him. He could feel how much she wanted him, as much as he wanted her, and it was a turn-on like nothing he’d ever experienced before. Her scent of clean sweat and lemon soap and musk filled his senses, like the soft little gasps she was making, the tickle of her hair in his face and the softness of her breasts against his chest, and the need that built and built within him as they rocked against each other, harder and harder, faster and faster. 

Echo cried out as she came. Even through two layers of jeans, he thought he could feel it. DJ clenched his fists and his jaw, hanging on to the remnants of his self-control and the thought that he really didn’t want to drive back a sticky mess, no matter how tempting it was to just let go.

She sagged against him with a contented sigh, limp and relaxed, trusting him to hold her. He lowered her down to the flat rock where they’d dropped his jacket and her top. She looked utterly satisfied. DJ felt like he was about to lose his mind.

“Can you—” he began, then grabbed her hand and directed it to his zipper. 

With a wicked grin, she unzipped his jeans and pulled them down past his hips. DJ watched, his head spinning, as she put out her tongue and dragged it over the palm of her hand. He waited for her to touch him, but instead she licked her palm again, making sure she got every bit of it and her fingers too. And again, flicking her tongue around the sides of every one of her fingers. 

DJ heard himself begging, “Come on, Echo, that’s good enough, just do it, come on, please, come on, you’re making me crazy—”

Her hot wet fist closed around him. Then he was bucking into that tight heat. It was better than anything he could have imagined. He wanted it to go on forever, and he wanted to come right now, and some distant part of him knew that he was babbling every thought that came into his mind. And then he stopped thinking. There was nothing but Echo and his journey toward his climax, like a spark burning down a fuse. She put her other arm around him, pulling him close. He buried his face in her shoulder as he came into her hand.

When he was capable of noticing his surrounding again, he found that he was lying in her arms, half on his jacket and half on the sand. Echo kissed him, then wiped her hand on the nearest rock. 

DJ glanced at the wet spot. “Wish I’d brought a handkerchief— wish I _owned_ a handkerchief. This isn’t a national monument, is it?”

“I doubt it,” Echo replied. “Anyway, I bet we’re not the first to have sex here. For all we know, this is a prime orgy spot for kangaroo rats.”

“I’m glad you waited till we were done to put that picture in my head.” 

Echo laughed, her chest vibrating against his. DJ hoped that for once, she wasn’t thinking about her past or her future, her worry over Charlie or the doom she saw coming for their relationship, but was simply happy to be with him, right there, right now. He studied her for signs of tension or anxiety or doubt, but all he saw was relaxation and contentment. 

Lazily, like a cat stretching in the sun, she turned her head and kissed the part of him that was closest to her lips, which happened to be his ear. “Does it feel good?”

“Everything you do feels good,” he replied.

Her teeth pressed down on his ear, nibbling gently, then released it. “You said it felt good to have your ear chewed.”

DJ laughed. “Yeah, it does. Keep going, if you don’t mind.”

She did. He lay back and enjoyed her warmth and her ear-chewing and the fact that she’d remembered him saying that he liked that— and not only remembered, but went ahead and did it. She watched his back, she trusted him to watch hers, she admitted it when she’d been wrong, she took care of him when he started to spin out of control, she ran like a wolf, and she drove him out of his mind in the very best way. 

After the hell that had been his last tour in Afghanistan, followed by being taken prisoner and having his best friend held hostage, he hadn’t been expecting anything but more bad news. But here she was, as surprising and precious as a diamond in a coal mine. 

It was a beautiful night in the desert. The full moon and twinkling stars shone bright, and DJ was in love.


End file.
